Today I pretty well finished my Sherman Firefly project, though a model is never really finished and will be improved and repaired as time goes on. But for the moment the Firefly is fresh off the work bench.

As a master reference I used the Tamiya 1/48th scale Sherman 1C as a reference and scratch built from there.

Here are pics of how it looked with all the bits on shortly before painting:

The really dark green is the original Tamiya Sherman plastic, the multi coloured bits are scratch built additions. The turret is grey as it has a coating of putty and glue to simulate the rough look of cast steel armour.

This is how the Sherman looked today at its first tank meeting:

This is a pic of the line drawing from the Tamiya kit instructions:

You can see here how similar the hull is to the Sherman M4.

Video

This is a little video I made of my tanks in the back garden and posted on Youtube before it was completely finished.

In its first mission my Firefly accounted for 5 enemy tanks. Ok 4.5 if you modify for the PzIII.

Parts:

The original Sherman was of course the Tamiya Sherman M4 105mm howitzer. It was a very early one that I bought second hand off the model flea market, although it was an oldie it did have the later double gearboxes rather than the horrible earlier style clutch gearbox system. It was probably made sometime in the 80s. Apart from the motors the tank had no other internal parts.
The new alu Tamiya 17 pounder gun (it was finding this for $10 on the internet that got me started really)
Tamiya Pershing DMDs also second hand from a model flea market.
Tamiya Pershing recoil mechanism.
Extra armour plates from Imperialmodelbau.(I know they are easy enough to make yourself but they only cost 2 euros, the one on the turret I made myself though)
New commanders cupola from Imperialmodelbau.
VVSS suspension covers from Imperialmodelbau.
Heng Long gun elevation unit.
Torro turret turn mechanism.

To turn a Tamiya M4 105mm Sherman into a Sherman Firefly 1C you do not have to do that much. The 1C hybrid Fireflies were based on the M4 Sherman chassis, the same one as the Tamiya Sherman. The later type Firefly VC is more complicated to model as it has a longer hull and that brings with it all sorts of model building complications.

Anyway here are the main points to note:

The Hull.

Glacis plate must be re angled to 35 degrees, simply cut it out and a reset it.
New driver and MG gunner positions.
Remove the mudguards around the lower edge of the hull.
Make a travel lock for the gun and relocate it to the corner of the engine deck.
Many tiny details to tools, light fittings, fuel caps etc that are best referenced from real pictures and plans and that I am not going to list here.

The Turret.

Most of the work is in the turret.
Over the original Sherman 105mm gun mantlet I made a Sherman firefly mantlet out of putty and plastic card.
Tamiya alu 17 pounder gun.
The back of the turret has to be altered. First, the back most portion has to be shortened a bit and the roof angled down more to 35 degrees. After doing that the box is mounted onto the back. This box held the radio in the real tank as there was no more room for it in the turret or hull due to the size if the 17 pounder and its requisite ammo. The hull MG was also sacrificed for ammo storage too.
New commanders cupola.
New loaders hatch. A big square one for handing down big 17 pounder shells into.
Lots of little details such as hooks, clamps, antenna mounts, brackets etc that are best made, as above for the hull details, by working from real photos and plans.
Pershing recoil unit inside.
Heng long gun elevation unit inside.
Tamiya battle unit inside.

In trials everything worked, despite being homemade, and after another month of tinkering it still all works but more reliably. The only complaint I have is that the old style gearboxes are not geared down enough and the model runs much too fast. This I will solve with a reduction gear or new gearboxes when they surface on ebay for a song.

With the Pershing DMD/MF combination the engine sound is not truly that of a Sherman but close enough. If I had used the Sherman DMD/MF combination then I would not have had the nice recoil that the Pershing DMD/MF combo offers.

This Sherman is representative of a Firefly from the elite 4/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, 8th Armoured Brigade, British 21st Army Group. This armoured formation fought their way across Europe from Normandy east just past Bremen in Northern Germany. On their way they passed through my home town of Wilstedt and now they are here again in 1/16th scale.

I hope you found this report interesting and that it leads to lots more Fireflies being built.

How did you modify the suspension? You describe them as "VVSS Covers." How easy do they go on? Are they literally just covers over the top of the stock suspension? The one thing keeping me from getting a Tamiya Sherman is the suspension. I want to do a Firefly or standard Sherman with the 75mm gun but the HVSS suspension is a sticking point.

Tank Zone has VVSS Suspension but they claim it is not functional. I am not sure if that means is is only cosmetic or if it means you have no active suspension if you install them.

Have you looked a Bulldog tracks. THe purist we be all over you, but you know what they "look" more the part then the Pershing tracks. I tried modifiying the bulldog tracks with the block and pins but failed. However just the stock tracks look more like early Sherman tracks. Of course no Sherman ever used them, but sometimes you don't need to be exact to be convincing.

I as not entirely happy with the standard HL metal gearboxes in the Sherman. The Sherman was a bit too fast and the short can motors ran extremely hot.

I was very impressed with the performance of the newer 3/1 HL gearboxes in my Panther so decided to install these into the Sherman as well.

The install went easier this time with only minimal adjustment of the HL gearbox housings.

This is how it went in pictures:

I used a piece of 6mm Beech laiminate Klick Flooring on the floor of the Sherman to get the right spacing. I decided to run this piece of wood the length of the model to give it more strength.

The gearboxes were mounted on the flooring with only the tops of the gearboxes needing to be ground down a tad.

I have now test run the Sherman with the newly installed gearboxes in all types of terrain and it performs really well. It is now slower but more powerful, the motors are no longer getting overheated and the battery life is enhanced as less energy is being lost as heat.

By popular request I have updated this post with fresh links to the photos, which no longer worked. I am waiting to get hold of a MATO Sherman so that I can do the suspension properly.

Sherman Firefly IC - Radio controlled with sound and recoil etc.

Today I pretty well finished my Sherman Firefly project, though a model is never really finished and will be improved and repaired as time goes on. But for the moment the Firefly is fresh off the work bench.

As a master reference I used the Tamiya 1/48th scale Sherman 1C as a reference and scratch built from there.

Here are pics of how it looked with all the bits on shortly before painting:

Pics after painting

The really dark green is the original Tamiya Sherman plastic, the multi coloured bits are scratch built additions. The turret is grey as it has a coating of putty and glue to simulate the rough look of cast steel armour.

The original Sherman was of course the Tamiya Sherman M4 105mm howitzer. It was a very early one that I bought second hand off the model flea market, although it was an oldie it did have the later double gearboxes rather than the horrible earlier style clutch gearbox system. It was probably made sometime in the 80s. Apart from the motors the tank had no other internal parts.
The new alu Tamiya 17 pounder gun (it was finding this for $10 on the internet that got me started really)
Tamiya Pershing DMDs also second hand from a model flea market.
Tamiya Pershing recoil mechanism.
Extra armour plates from Imperialmodelbau.(I know they are easy enough to make yourself but they only cost 2 euros, the one on the turret I made myself though)
New commanders cupola from Imperialmodelbau.
VVSS suspension covers from Imperialmodelbau.
Heng Long gun elevation unit.
Torro turret turn mechanism.

To turn a Tamiya M4 105mm Sherman into a Sherman Firefly 1C you do not have to do that much. The 1C hybrid Fireflies were based on the M4 Sherman chassis, the same one as the Tamiya Sherman. The later type Firefly VC is more complicated to model as it has a longer hull and that brings with it all sorts of model building complications.

Anyway here are the main points to note:

The Hull.

Glacis plate must be re angled to 35 degrees, simply cut it out and a reset it.
New driver and MG gunner positions.
Remove the mudguards around the lower edge of the hull.
Make a travel lock for the gun and relocate it to the corner of the engine deck.
Many tiny details to tools, light fittings, fuel caps etc that are best referenced from real pictures and plans and that I am not going to list here.

The Turret.

Most of the work is in the turret.
Over the original Sherman 105mm gun mantlet I made a Sherman firefly mantlet out of putty and plastic card.
Tamiya alu 17 pounder gun.
The back of the turret has to be altered. First, the back most portion has to be shortened a bit and the roof angled down more to 35 degrees. After doing that the box is mounted onto the back. This box held the radio in the real tank as there was no more room for it in the turret or hull due to the size if the 17 pounder and its requisite ammo. The hull MG was also sacrificed for ammo storage too.
New commanders cupola.
New loaders hatch. A big square one for handing down big 17 pounder shells into.
Lots of little details such as hooks, clamps, antenna mounts, brackets etc that are best made, as above for the hull details, by working from real photos and plans.
Pershing recoil unit inside.
Heng long gun elevation unit inside.
Tamiya battle unit inside.

In trials everything worked, despite being homemade, and after another month of tinkering it still all works but more reliably. The only complaint I have is that the old style gearboxes are not geared down enough and the model runs much too fast. This I will solve with a reduction gear or new gearboxes when they surface on ebay for a song.

With the Pershing DMD/MF combination the engine sound is not truly that of a Sherman but close enough. If I had used the Sherman DMD/MF combination then I would not have had the nice recoil that the Pershing DMD/MF combo offers.

This Sherman is representative of a Firefly from the elite 4/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, 8th Armoured Brigade, British 21st Army Group. This armoured formation fought their way across Europe from Normandy east just past Bremen in Northern Germany. On their way they passed through my home town of Wilstedt and now they are here again in 1/16th scale.

I hope you found this report interesting and that it leads to lots more Fireflies being built.

Great Firefly, thanks for the the build photos Alan. That Firefly was one of the first in it's time. Starting to see a lot more now

Tigerlate. You are Shermanlate as well

Go for the Mato Sherman because you just can't get a more affordable source of parts, and with a little bit of modeling can do just aout anything with it. The inspiration for this came from Tailend Charlie.